Island Life by David Slack

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Island Life: Are you old enough?

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  • InternationalObserver,

    heh heh heh ...

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    Actually ... (and this could go on forever so lets not)
    ... there is a good case for giving 8 year olds the right to vote.

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    Any 16 yr old spending time thinking about national politics doesn't deserve to be 16.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • John Farrell,

    Perhaps the proposal to lower the voting age is the parliamentary equivalent of a troll? It certainly seems to be provoking responses.

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 499 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Who do you think will fight harder to keep their bone: teachers or pollies?

    I'd like to think that both would be fighting to get rid of me - otherwise I'm really not doing my job properly.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • james cairney,

    Is it true that New Zealand First has one in the ballot that raises the age to 65?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 25 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Any 16 yr old spending time thinking about national politics doesn't deserve to be 16.

    Being the Aorangi Regional Rep on the Labour Youth Council at 16 did absolutely nothing to stop me being, well, very sixteen. The Labour Party even paid for me to fly to Wellington and get drunk there.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    The Labour Party even paid for me to fly to Wellington and get drunk there.

    That was just practise, in case you became an MP.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    That was just practise, in case you became an MP.

    I feel I became officially old the day Charles Chauvel entered parliament. How can someone who once helped you get up one Wellington hill too many by packing everyone down like a scrum and then charging up it screaming be an MP? It's just not right.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    by packing everyone down like a scrum and then charging up it screaming be an MP? It's just not right

    More practise... for caucus meetings.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Universal sufferage at 16 - is that the ultimate for Sue?

    If 16-year-olds get suffer-age, does that mean they get to be really annoying and made everyone suffer, but they don't have to face the music?

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Marcus Neiman,

    Well, they are already being taxed...

    Sydney • Since Feb 2007 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • James,

    Give the kids' votes to their parents!

    Idea from rom Belgium , translation by Google:

    By depriving the children of the voting rights, the adult vote for all encourages the politicians to grant less weight to the interests of the children than to those of the voters. The best means of guaranteeing than a taking into equitable account of the interests of the children - their to grant the voting rights - runs up however against the fact that a child does not have necessary intellectual competences to exert his voting rights. As an incapacity of exercise of a right does not imply however necessarily the loss of this right, I endeavour to determine if the democratic principles on which are based the Western policy systems do not require to grant to the child voting rights which would be exerted by its legal representatives.

    New Zealand • Since Feb 2007 • 34 posts Report Reply

  • Neil Morrison,

    Maybe the 16 yr olds will vote to have pies reinstated in tuck shops. If they can choose a government surely they are mature enough to choose what they can eat all by themselves.

    The Labour Party even paid for me to fly to Wellington and get drunk there.

    Two reasons to get drunk, if reasons were needed.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report Reply

  • Don Christie,

    ... there is a good case for giving 8 year olds the right to vote.

    Yes there is. My (then 6 year old) went to some considerable effort to identify all the party colours and posters, understand the basic policies and find out who her mum was voting for.

    The look on her face when we turned up at the booth and she discovered that she was without franchise, was to put it mildly, stunned disbelief.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1645 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Nine months of Dunedin police having their reputation dragged through the mud by FoB (friends of Bain). All the gummint's fault, of course.

    Odd that a filthy right-winger has to say this, but it seems to me we've had numerous occasions where the Police wouldn't have had their reputations "dragged through the mud' if they hadn't been dropped there in the first place. I really want to do some GBH on Greg O'Connor, Anette King et. al. every time I hear the tired old line that you're a 'cop basher' when you have the gall to suggest that the Police aren't any more flawless - or beyond scrutiny and criticism - than any other civil servant.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    I'm entirely against 16 year olds having the vote. I just don't see that they are mature enough, and surely the point of being an adolescent is that your body is undergoing some pretty radical reproductive and sexual changes.. I know some 16 year olds who are entirely capable of standing still long enough to make informed decisions about national politics. But not most of them. And isn't that what the Youth Caucas every year is about? No no no no - kids these days already think they are 18 when they are 12. Don't be giving them any real responsibility. It will just swell their heads and make the little buggers even more impossible.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • Lee Wilkinson,

    Jackie, have to agree with you there.
    When I was 16 I thought I was wise enough to vote, but considering some of the thinking I was doing at 18 I'm not so sure I knew what was happening anyway.

    Whangarei Heads • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'm entirely against 16 year olds having the vote. I just don't see that they are mature enough, and surely the point of being an adolescent is that your body is undergoing some pretty radical reproductive and sexual changes.

    Up to a point, Jackie. But I'd also suggest menopausal women are also undergoing "pretty radical reproductive and sexual changes" - and I can think of more pleasant ways to commit suicide than suggest they aren't fit to vote. I'd also wonder whether your average 18-25 year old of either gender is exactly a fount of mature socio-political insight. :)

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Marcus Neiman,

    I'm a little suspicious of the people who suggest that 16 year olds have a lack of capacity to choose among - let's face it - one of the four or five political brands. As a category, I am not convinced that the kids are less capable/able to resist dubious advertising than any other age cohort.

    Rather, I think the anti-enfranchaisers are afraid that, quite rightly, 16 and 17 year olds are going to potentially pursue very different interests to the middle-age, middle-class people who comment on blogs on weekdays, who, are thinking on some level - "ooh more potentially education spending more affordable housing spending... what about my tax cuts/old people's drugs/superannuation."

    In sum, I suspect I reading a lot of self-serving paternalism. And anyway if, if they are going to work and be taxed, surely they should have a say in the spending of those taxes.

    Sydney • Since Feb 2007 • 107 posts Report Reply

  • Yamis,

    As a teacher of 13-18 year olds....

    There are many of them in the 16-17 age range who wouldn't have a freakin clue who to vote for or why somebody should or shouldn't get their vote.

    But then again as somebody alluded to earlier they wouldn't vote so there's no big deal.

    The only ones who would vote would be those who are intelligent enough to get themselves enrolled, learn a little about what the parties stand for and then get motivated enough on election day to head to the polling booth.

    So on those grounds I'm comfortable with 16 years olds being allowed to vote as I know that I'd have one or two out of a class of 20 odd voting.

    + there are so many bigoted dickheads out there who get to vote and nobody stops them. They might be 'old enough' to make an informed decision only problem is they still don't make an informed decision. Unless being informed is disliking how a few leaders look and hating large sections of society, or hanging round fellow bigots who repeat what each other said so much they all actually believe it to be fact.

    Since Nov 2006 • 903 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    The only ones who would vote would be those who are intelligent enough to get themselves enrolled, learn a little about what the parties stand for and then get motivated enough on election day to head to the polling booth.

    And maybe go into politics?
    This misanthropic vein got me thinking about a journalist who covered NSW State Parliament in the 90s. He took a friend into the press gallery as a guest to observe proceedings. "You know what all of these people have in common?" said his guest. "They all look as if they were kicked when they were at school."

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • james cairney,

    If we actually want young people to take an interest then a good start is to actually include them.

    Intellect, hormonal stability, knowledge, and political interest are not pre-requisites for voting, thus they have little relevance to whether 16 year olds should get to vote.

    They have an interest, so they should have a say. It is irrelevant that their views may be moronic.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 25 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    If voting was extended to 16-year-olds, we might see the Anti-Cruelty to Animals party becoming government.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Yamis,

    It's 16 and 17 year olds getting the vote not everybody over the age of 17 NOT being allowed to vote.

    The percentage of 16 and 17 year olds who would vote would probably be under 50%. Not sure what that would work out at in terms of total numbers.

    I remember being in the 7th form in 1993 and all my classmates being able to vote in the elections that were coming up and I couldn't cos I was still 17. Felt well pissed off.

    Since Nov 2006 • 903 posts Report Reply

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